


Give Me Something To Make Me Happy

by mechanicalspirit



Category: Short Circuit (1986)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicalspirit/pseuds/mechanicalspirit
Summary: Howard wasn't a good businessman. But he was a good scientist. And Crosby had been right; what a malfunction.Something incredibly weird had happened and the only clues that remained were Crosby's strange last words, and an inert machine that stared blankly at the automatic doors."It learned how to feel. And it was scared."He was ready to walk away. Accept that a hundred, plus, million dollars of research had been flushed within a space of a week.Except he wasn't.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Give Me Something To Make Me Happy

**Author's Note:**

> I bring you the beginnings of something odd, but hopefully enjoyable nonetheless. Short Circuit fanfiction seems to be rare, and unless I'm not looking in the right places I've yet to see anyone tackle a story focusing on any of the other SAINTs.
> 
> This is an idea I've been playing with for a while now, and normally I try to post stories after I've completed them but I'm having a lot of fun with this and wanted to share what I have so far. It leads on directly from the end of Chapter 4 of 'Finally, Safety', following separate characters (a story I will eventually post up here, but you may find on Fanfiction.net in the meantime).
> 
> I've yet to decide how this little thread of a story will end, but eventually I'd like this to converge with some other ideas I've got. We'll see how far I get.
> 
> It could get quite upsetting later on, so possibly the rating may change to mature since it may delve into darker themes. But it's also possible it may not.
> 
> If I don't get around to finishing these ideas I have no qualms with people continuing my stories in their own ways should I be lucky enough to inspire anyone.

Howard Marner, once brilliant scientist and mathematician, now bankrupt businessman, stared out at the one remaining unit in a stupidly expensive line of experimental military robots.

Number Four sat under the dark grey clouds, connected to a similar, but different, generator that had caused one of its counterparts to run skittering out of the laboratory grounds, armed to the hilt with an incredibly powerful laser weapon, after a lightning strike caused a power surge.

The week of disaster was finally over. Number Five had finally been destroyed.

And so many people were going to become unemployed.

The computer geniuses behind the SAINT robots had quit, four out of five active machines had been destroyed and Number Four was hours away from being sent into the industrial incinerator. Nova was close to follow suit.

Howard wasn't a good businessman. But he was a good scientist. And Crosby had been right; _what a malfunction._

Something incredibly weird had happened and the only clues that remained were Crosby's strange last words, and an inert machine that stared blankly at the automatic doors.

" _It learned how to feel. And it was scared."_

He was ready to walk away. Accept that a hundred, plus, million dollars of research had been flushed within a space of a week.

Except he wasn't.

Howard opened the door and stepped out onto the debriefing station. He stood in front of Number Four. The robot continued to stare at the door. Patient. Obedient.

"Number Four, verbal command. Follow me."

The robot's head snapped towards him and he could see the machine read his facial features.

"Dr. Howard Marner. Access code required." It said. Each robot had been given a different octave to its voice; Number Four's was the highest, most feminine sounding of their SAINT robots. It was one of Crosby's little side projects. He liked playing with sound so he decided he wanted to instil a tiny bit of individuality in each machine – each robot had randomly generated its own default pitch. An extra something to tell them apart aside from the numbers that had been printed on their head plates.

Howard sighed, trying to remember what it was, or where he could find it. He wasn't in the habit of directly commanding the robots, usually he told someone else what he wanted them to do and things would happen. "Two nine," He tried.

Number Four didn't move.

"Four two seven two one?" He tried. It was one he'd heard Crosby repeat lately in the command room – usually out of frustration as Number Five continued to ignore commands.

"Voice recognition: Dr. Howard Marner. Facial recognition: Dr. Howard Marner. Code administrator access: granted."

Well that felt too easy. Howard stiffened, not sure getting access to alter its code was a good idea. Much of their programs had been written in a language that Newton and Benjamin had designed together. He knew next to nothing. "Follow me, Number Four."

The machine took a few seconds, a whirring sound deep in its chest suggested it was processing something. Perhaps he hadn't used the correct word.

"Command accepted. Pursue Dr. Howard Marner."

 _P_ _ursue_. Howard shivered slightly, but turned around slowly walking towards the loading bay. The robot lurched forwards and kept pace directly behind him. This was a bad idea, he told himself as he approached the remaining company vans. It would be safer to just destroy the thing. But he needed to know.

Nearby was a tarp covered in multiple pieces of shrapnel and seared SAINT components. The collected remains of Number Five. Howard approached the sorry looking torso; its panelling blown back and curling like wickedly sharp vines. Somehow the circuitry inside was … mostly intact. If not blackened and melted in places. It looks like Schroeder hadn't entirely managed to destroy the robot's brain. Perhaps some data would be salvageable.

He spent a few minutes trying to fold the corners of the tarp together so that the remains could be dragged without loosing anything. Once he'd finished tying the ends together he turned to the robot and gave himself a moment to catch his breath.

"Number Four, load truck R3 with the tarp and its contents." He pointed at the thing, hoping that the machine had enough knowledge to understand what he meant. The robots had been tested and programmed to perform numerous tasks, many of which were labour intensive. Like hauling heavy items. Howard was pretty sure that he'd encountered Crosby and Jabituya performing a few tests on the robots, getting them to load various items into the trucks or to designated areas.

It seemed to consider his request, and then grabbed one end of the tarp and dragged the entire thing backwards up the ramp, like a leopard pulling a dead antelope up a tree, and into the back of the specified truck. After a few seconds it came back down the ramp and settled in front of him. "Task completed."

"Alright... Thanks." Howard looked around the loading bay, scratching his head and wondering if there was anything else he wanted to save before he publicly announced bankruptcy. Going down to the lab storage areas might be an idea – he could pick up a terminal or two. He'd already gathered Newton and Crosby's files – originally with the intent to destroy them, but this was the last chance to make sense of what happened. Until now, Crosby had been very down to earth. His designs were incredibly ambitious and imaginative, and his ideas came together like a masterful symphony. He had inhuman focus and although he was a nervous person, he was a confident engineer and knew he had a brilliant mind. And rightly so. But something about Number Five's malfunction had deeply shaken the man.

If he hadn't marched over to him after the robot was blown up and made such a scene over quitting then Howard might have approached him with the idea of scouring the remains and figuring out this problem. It was probably a gesture worth too little too late for the engineer though.

"Number Four, load yourself on the truck."

Immediately, it spun around and headed back up the ramp, coming to a stop behind the seats and clamping itself to the floor. Howard watched it for a long moment, but it sat quiet and inert.

For the rest of the day Howard went back and fourth; dealing with the surge of people putting their notices in. Perhaps some knew the company was in trouble; others were retaliating against Schroeder being fired. When he had a spare moment he would gather more files, devices and remains from their research projects that he'd found particularly interesting or worth keeping a record of. They too were loaded on the truck.

~oOo~

A few months passed. Howard was glad he'd taken the initiative to close the company when he had; he'd managed to pay everyone off and still had enough left over for himself to take a break in relative comfort for a short while. The past five years had seen him age twenty. He needed some of his life back.

He'd bought himself a small apartment deeper into Washington and figured if he didn't find something he wanted to do, he could return to his roots and lecture at one of the local universities. It didn't seem like a bad idea anymore. He'd been alone since he'd left Nova's complex. The only interaction he'd had was going to the shops to buy milk and bread – which at first had felt so pedestrian and normal after so long in the lab and ordering other people to do things for you. It was novel. Almost.

Unfortunately Number Four had run out of charge before he could transfer it into his apartment and it was only until recently he'd had the time to get it some power – enough power to safely get it in the door and hooked up to a socket.

If he'd known turning the machine on and getting it ready to take commands was going to be such a pain he wouldn't have let its battery die on him. He'd spent a few hot afternoons in the back of the truck, reading over some of Newton and Ben's notes and trying to decipher which mode to boot the robot into, and which codes and commands would get it to obey him.

On a late Thursday afternoon, with rain pelting the exterior of the truck, Howard felt like he was getting somewhere at last. The SAINT's console interface was finally beginning to make sense to him. He pressed the large red power button and watched as lines of code lit up until it settled on a screen telling him which sections of the robot were active. Unfortunately, the laser was armed… which was a bit unnerving, but for now he would celebrate the fact that he'd finally got the robot to respond to him.

"Voice recognition: Dr. Howard Marner. Facial recognition: Dr. Howard Marner. Code administrator access: granted." After so long, Number Four's disinterested feminine voice sounded like sweet music to his ears. He leaned back until he was on the floor. Success!

After a pause he sighed and stood up – he couldn't leave the robot in here. And now he he had it at his disposal he could use its strength to bring up Number Five's shattered remains.

The rain had left the street bare so there wasn't anyone around to witness the massive robot carry the tarp containing Five's computer into the building, and by some small miracle didn't encounter anyone in the elevator.

Once they got inside Howard made sure to get Four connected to a charging port and let it sit in the corner while he tried to find the sections in the robot's notes that detailed disarming the laser. He knew from past conversations that turning the weapon on and off wasn't just as simple as telling the robot to disarm itself. Crosby said it was rooted deep in the machine's code, stored on special ROM chips.

But after glancing through the manuscripts he found nothing obvious. He was a bit exhausted after working to get Four back online that he decided to call it a night and turned on the TV. At least the robot seemed to be operating how he would expect; meaning at least the machine was obeying orders and not running off into the sunset and getting civilians in trouble.

He looked over at it - it was the same as ever. The only difference was it seemed to have rotated its head to point at the television. That didn't seem too unusual though. They'd been programmed to pay attention to their surroundings and were capable of taking in and processing data on their own. They often seem attracted to analyse the largest, loudest signals - bright lights, loud noises… sudden movements. It was just a part of how they'd been built.

Howard dozed off while some old re-run of Lassie came on.

~oOo~

In the following weeks Howard had found a way to rig up a connection between Four and the shelled corpse of Five's computer. He figured the robot would be much faster at running diagnostics on Five's systems and reading the machine's logs than he ever would with a standard office computer.

It had taken a couple of days, much longer than he first thought. Perhaps it had found something interesting and was trying to process the findings.

He returned home with some groceries and hung his coat up and checked in with Four as he passed the study.

"What's the status report?" He asked it. "Have you decrypted and repaired Number Five's logs yet?"

Four's head swivelled around to look at him. "Incorrect."

Nonplussed, he asked it. "What's incorrect? Define."

"Incomplete, minimal, build of SAINT core programming. Conclusion: False Number Five."

Howard frowned. "That's impossible. It has to be. I saw Number five get destroyed with my own eyes."

Number Four kept staring in his direction, not particularly looking at him. There was some whirring and the gentlest of clunks as it processed something. It was a little unnerving. It adjusted its answer slightly. "Incomplete copy of Number Five's core programming. Conclusion: False Number Five."

"A copy?" He stepped forwards, staring at the computer's components, blackened, charred and caged inside a twisted frame of once-sturdy metal. "This isn't Number Five?"

"Affirmative. Seven minutes, twenty two seconds worth of logs. Objective: Run. Evade."

That was strange. A cold sensation crept up his spine and he hurried across the floor and lifted the tarp covers, frantically looking for the remains of Five's cradle base and hunting for one of the panels where Nova's logo had been stamped. He couldn't find it anywhere. If it truly wasn't there than that meant the machine had never officially received a build and assigned a number.

He yelped as he cut his hand on one of the jagged edges of torn metal. His search put to an abrupt end as blood poured freely down his fingers. "Shit." He groaned and stumbled into his kitchen where he'd put a first aid kit under his sink. After a long few minutes he managed to get the bleeding somewhat under control and he glanced up to see Four staring at him from outside the kitchen door.

"Crosby and Jabituya didn't happen to program you with first aid knowledge, did they?" He grimaced as he noticed blood already seeping through the bandages.

The robot continued to stare for a long moment. "Input."

That was a no. Howard sighed. How much more practical if it would have been… he was beginning to understand why Crosby had been so pissed when his research had been steered towards military aggression. "Damnit…" He weighed up his options, trying to make up his mind whether it was worth going to the hospital for.

In the end he did; the bandages eventually got soaked with blood and he figured that probably meant he needed sutures or something.

After hours of waiting he was finally seen and was able to drive back home. He checked the time. Most of day was wasted, but got some childish satisfaction out of realising he hadn't yet missed the reruns of Lassie. Something about that show just put him in a better mood; he'd been an awkward teen, too 'old' to watch it, when it first aired but sometimes watching kid shows as an adult was surprisingly satisfying.

Besides… he needed something to take his mind off of the horrifying realisation that the fifth SAINT unit had actually managed to evade them. There was one small comfort, and that was that so far no reports of a mass murdering robot had come up on the news. Maybe Newton had been right. Maybe it wasn't dangerous.

"Fucking Crosby!" Marner growled, slapping the steering wheel of the ex-Nova van with his uninjured hand. He'd just parked it near his apartment when the realisation struck him; the eagerness to quit, and the speed in which he cleared out his office. Sure, he was upset but the robot had to be with Newton. Or Ben. Or even the strange lunch wagon lady?

Furious, he slammed his front door and chucked the keys in a bowl. "That scheming bastard!" He spat as he entered the living room. Four was sitting beside the sofa, staring blankly at the television. Howard grumbled as he slumped into his preferred seat and eyed the blazing screen. He must have left it on.

He glanced over at the robot, so quiet and still. It was so completely obliviousness to everything that he was almost envious of it. "Four, make me a martini," he demanded, willing to see the thing actually _do_ something other than sit around like some bizarre slothful roommate.

Making drinks was practically the only thing it was useful for as it was one of the only domestic tasks it had been programmed with. Even then, it was no cocktail mixer; it only knew a few recipes. Training it to clean the apartment was proving to be difficult. And he was no engineer. Sure he could make the thing turn on and hold the vacuum cleaner but trying to tell it to push the thing around the room turned out to be a wasted effort as it missed huge chunks of floor in its effort to avoid obstacles. Also it just didn't seem to understand a thing he said when he tried to explain he wanted all the dust, hair and crumbs out of the rug. In the end he realised he'd spent hours trying unsuccessfully to get Four to vacuum the living room when it would've just taken him a few minutes. Maybe if he persevered it would eventually learn but it felt like a long way off and required too much effort on his part.

Four trundled away, disappearing into the kitchen.

"Make it a double!" He called after it.

A few minutes later and the machine returned with his drink and handed it to him. "Your cocktail..."

He took it from the robot. "Dr Marner." He mimicked sarcastically. "Yeah… great. Whatever." He stared contemplatively at the screen, wondering how he would track down Newton. Assuming he was still in Washington, he could perhaps call an operator to try and find his number. It was too soon for any printed directories to have his number or address. Or maybe he had gone back to his old university...

Four seemed to regard him for a second and then slowly settled in front of the TV. As Lassie came onto the screen, it slowly dawned on Howard that for the most part Four's eyes were still, fixed in place and taking in a wider and shallower scope of information, but when this show came on he'd begun to notice little whirrs and clicks. For whatever reason Lassie had got its full attention and it focused in on the dog and her antics, more so then any other program on the TV. Perhaps this had become too routine and it was recognising it, deciding that this block of programming was prevalent enough to study more than others.

~oOo~

Months rolled past, and Howard had searched unsuccessfully for his rogue engineers. They had both gone suspiciously quiet and he suspected they'd changed their names. He was convinced they had run off with the real Number Five and he had no idea as to where, nor did he have the resources to find out anymore.

Nova had flopped so hard he was embarrassed to speak about it, even a year later. As long as there was no reports of a mass murdering robot he supposed things would be alright. It was time to make peace with the fact that he couldn't do anything about it. Meanwhile, Number Four had become somewhat of a glorified coat rack – a particularly useless one he found out one day as he threw one of his suits on it while getting ready for an interview. The robot had tugged the thing off its head, tearing off a button in the process and leaving an unsightly hole.

Despite the tear he'd somehow got the job, and was now lecturing calculus at the local university. The idea of having access to their libraries and resources was appealing, plus he speculated querying the computer scientists on their opinions on sentience and if it was remotely possible. He wasn't looking forward to grading papers though, and would've preferred not having to deal with that aspect, but needs must.

He returned home one day and called out a routine, "hello, Number Four." He waited for the machine's response.

"Hello." Its monotonous voice barely carried down the corridor.

Howard sighed. "Louder." The only thing he'd successfully taught the robot to do was to greet him when he came home, but it was a long way off managing to hold a proper conversation and was by no means satisfied any need for company. It didn't help that it sounded dreadfully bored, but Howard knew this was just his human brain trying to anthropomorphize the thing. It was just doing what it was told, not that knowing that helped.

He trudged his way into the living room and looked at the thing, sitting in the corner near the sofa facing the blank television, almost expectantly. "And how are you?" He muttered, trying to entertain himself more than anything else.

"Operational. Awaiting input."

"Great… Still haven't decided to go AWOL yet? Never thought to get off your metal ass and hijack some poor civilians car?"

The robot's head tracked with his movements. It said nothing. Silent and stoic as ever.

"Is that a no?"

Silence, except the gentle whirring of some kind of process.

He sat down and slouched deep into the chair. "I suppose that's a good thing..." he muttered and kicked off his shoes.

"And now, Lassie." Came the familiar voice of the programme reader.

Howard glanced up, noticing the TV had just been turned on and frowned. He must've sat on the remote and shuffled around, feeling for it.

It was lying undisturbed on the coffee table. He looked at it with a growing look of confusion.

~oOo~

As time went by a routine slowly emerged.

Dr Howard Marner would return around 17:47 on the days he left. He would collapse into his armchair, put on the TV and surf the channels, order a drink and by the time it had returned with the requested item then the TV would almost always be settled on the channel where the now familiar black and white rough collie would engage in various antics with her family.

As Marner settled into his chair with his Martini and lose himself in the program, Four set its eyes on the show, ever so slowly putting together a complex, interwoven, map of data between the human characters on screen and this dog. It had seen enough dogs on the television now that it was up to 96% accuracy on identifying them from other non-human animals.

The program ended and something else would come on. Marner would briefly fall into his sleep state and Four would quietly analyse the data from 'Lassie' as a priority before taking in any large amounts of new information.

But as the months progressed the routine slowly shifted. Gradually Marner wanted more Martinis, and occasionally some other cocktail. Until one night, at three in the morning, where he was sitting lopsidedly at his desk and staring at the wreckage of the Number Five decoy, breath saturated with alcohol, something changed. Without more data it was impossible to figure out why its counterpart had malfunctioned the way it had. And try as he might, Howard could not find Newton or Benjamin.

Sometimes he would ask it strange questions, seemingly muttering to himself, but tonight it was a barrage. "So what stops you from high tailing it out of here, huh?" Some of his drink spilled onto the floor.

Four looked at him to better hear, but still did not understand the question. "Unrecognised query. Require input."

"Well there's no way I'm getting information from Number Five. So you tell me, what do you think happened?"

"Unrecognised query. - "

"Require input. Yeah yeah... I heard you the first fifty times. You make for terrible company, do you know that?" He went quiet for a long moment, took a long swig of his drink and then looked back up at its face. "Just tell me... what makes you different to Number Five, huh?"

Finally, a question it could pick apart. A comparison. "Name. Order of construction. Variations in perceptual data."

"What does that even mean? Variations in perceptual data? What variations? Define!" His arms few up into the air for seemingly no apparent reason.

"Individual, separate, different perception; cannot occupy same space at once." It informed him, attempting to fulfil his request with the sparse information it had.

"Right... So like you experience the world differently." He looked at his glass, almost empty now.

It continued to list any other discrepancy it could think of. "Number Five hit by a power surge."

He seemed to sober up just ever so slightly. "You were there...right next to it. Even when you left the debriefing station. What did you see? When did Number Five deviate from your troop?

For a brief moment it was silent while it pulled up and read its records, comparing each until it found the information that seemed to best match what was being requested. "Number Five followed Number Four until Number Five deviated off course and struck obstacle. Wall. Lost track. Communications stopped. No response."

"It drove into the wall? Why?"

The SAINTS did communicate with one another. They relayed their status, position and current tasks. If necessary, they could split a block of data for processing between themselves, combining their computing power. Number Five had announced something to the troop just as they lost track of it. "Testing parameters of world."

"OK... so why don't you do that? Why don't you drive into the walls?"

It could only break down the later half of his question. "Environment satisfactorily mapped. Objective: navigate to prescribed areas without hitting obstacles."

He expelled air from his mouth. "Well why didn't Number Five go through to the reception?"

"Unknown. More input required."

He sighed again, more forcefully, "Oh for…" He growled something inaudible. "Number Four. Just give me a reason. Give me _something_ to work with here. Give me something to make me happy!"

"Unrecognised commands. Require input."

"Aaagh!" He scoffed, then waved a dismissive hand. "You're useless! Go and figure it out. Read a dictionary or something. I don't care anymore..."

Four recognised the tone as some form of admonishment. It was doing something incorrectly, and it needed to alter its responses. It couldn't decipher what it was being disciplined for, but took note of all it could. Perhaps with some adjustments to the biases in its neural nets it could refine its behaviours and avoid further negative feedback. But with such little data, it was going to take a lot of time and much trial and error.

What the robot could recognise from his latest command it would act on. The robot rolled away from him, having enough information in its database to recognise 'dictionary' and knew it had read the same word on the side of an object, a book, located in the living room. It found it on the shelf next to numerous other books and took the thick volume and read through it, updating and creating new blocks of data in its databases. Although there was a database of common words already stored, 'happy' was now recorded in its systems with a more elaborate definition along with its other synonyms. But it found the information lacking. It still didn't understand it, nor how to provoke the state in Dr Howard Marner. It would have to pull in more data to find a solution.

Finished, Number Four dropped the dictionary, and reached for another book. Having been told to research, it needed to find the information it was lacking.


End file.
